Robert Plant - the legend of rock vocals

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Robert Anthony Plant was born on August 20, 1948 in Halsone (near Birmingham). The future famous singer studied at the King Edward VI School, located in Stourbridge.

The origins of a musical career

The boy's parents, or rather his father, wanted their child to become an accountant. However, from a very young age, Robert Plant became interested in music. Hearing the blues performed by such masters as R. Johnson and Sonny Williamson, the young man decided that his fate was closely connected with vocals.

Since then, Robert began to make new friends from the musical environment of Birmingham. Acquaintance with the blues only encouraged the singer, he began to eagerly study the popular trends of that time: soul, jazz and others.

First performances

For the first time, Robert Plant appeared on stage in a small institution in Stourbridge Seven Stars Blues Club. However, he already was in several musical compositions. One of these was Crawling King Snakes, where the fateful meeting with John Bonham took place.

1966 brought the singer the first contract signed with the famous recording studio CBS Records. The latter drew attention to Robert whenhe performed with the band Listen. However, the three songs recorded by Plant for this studio did not bring him success.

Then the singer had participation in such lineups as Band of Joy, Obs-Tweedle, performances together with Alexis Korner, who performed the blues.

Family

In 1968, Robert Plant, whose personal life went smoothly, married Maureen Wilson. Some time later, the couple had a daughter, named Carmen Jane by the parents, and then the son Karak was born. Robert Plant, whose family had already grown, managed to combine both communication with her and a musical career.

Led Zeppelin

At one of the performances of Obs-Tweedle with the participation of Robert was Jimmy Page, who was so impressed by the singer's vocal abilities that he offered him cooperation. At the same time, a friendship began between the musicians.

After Robert Plant got into the group, he recommended Jimmy to invite John Bonham. The musicians called the group The New Yardbirds and went on a tour of the Scandinavian countries. After that, the rockers decided to rename their team. Then the legendary Led Zeppelin appeared.

The Led Zeppelin I album recorded by the group brought Plant fame, journalists and critics began to talk about him, his name began to fall into all kinds of ratings and lists.

Led Zeppelin II gave fans of the band not only Robert's vocals, but also helped to recognize him as a songwriter.

The group's third album was unexpected forcritics who thought that Led Zeppelin would weigh up their sound. However, Robert Plant always believed that musicians should move away from heavy metal, and use more arrangements and acoustics in their works.

Led Zeppelin IV brought fans a single that has become a hard rock classic. This is Stairway To Heaven, which has many interesting cases associated with it. Some claim that otherworldly forces helped the singer write this song.

Interestingly, at his concerts, Robert Plant very often allowed improvisation, during which he could sing completely new words, quatrains. And with all this, the musician kept himself on stage quite easily, managing to talk in a joking manner with the audience.

Solo recordings

In 1982, the solo career of the singer began. Robert Plant, whose discography (in terms of solo performance) began with Pictures at Eleven, continued his work. He managed to collaborate with Phil Collins, recording the next album. Later, he formed the Honeydrippers, which recorded only two songs and disbanded.

Then several more albums were recorded, the songwriter of which was keyboardist Phil Johnston. It was the latter who persuaded Robert to perform the songs of the great Led Zeppelin, which the singer did not want to sing before, because he did not want to remain in history just as a “former vocalist”.

During his long career, Robert Plant has recorded many great songs that have become world famous. Some of them are still in the first lines of the charts. Robert's vocals influenced a wholesuccession of the following rock vocalists. Many of them admitted this, for example, such famous personalities as Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, Freddie Mercury from Queen and many others.

One can talk endlessly about each musical composition of the singer, and there are a lot of them in Plant's arsenal. Fans of the vocalist still enjoy many of his things, recorded both during his participation in Led Zeppelin and solo. Well, for those who are not familiar with his work, it remains only to recommend listening to the great and legendary rock singer.